are concerned, those which made up the curriculum thirty years ago, they seem to be slightly the worse for the recent improvements.  The college course of 1840 or 1850 was a comparatively simple thing.  It covered only a few studies, and those of a general nature; it taught more thoroughly and with less pretence to universality; in short, it did its work more after the fashion of a good school.  At the present day the curriculum embraces a much wider range of subjects—­we need only recall to our minds the introduction of general history, chemistry, physiology and the modern languages—­but the time has not been lengthened by a single year.  The student’s time is more broken up than before:  the direct influence exerted by the professor is less.  Our recognition of these and kindred facts, however, should be something more than a vain regret for the good old past.  All these changes are concessions made to the spirit of the age.  Our generation demands—­and very rightfully, too—­that the sphere of knowledge be enlarged, that the sciences of Nature receive sufficient attention.  To attempt to undo what has been done, to restore the curriculum to the antiquated cadre of Latin and Greek, trigonometry, mental science and rhetoric, would be a reaction as senseless as hopeless.

Let us be just to ourselves and just to our colleges.  We, the public, clamored for new studies, and the colleges had to meet the demand, because, by force of circumstances, they were the only places where the changes could be effected.  But in our praisworthy desire for progress we have not considered sufficiently whether the colleges were in truth the proper places for innovation; whether we were bringing in our innovations in the right way and at the right time; whether we were in a fair way of making our colleges what we seek to make them—­namely, centres of learning.  To discuss all these points would be equivalent to discussing the question of education in all its phases, from the primary school to the university.  For the present we must limit ourselves to understanding and appreciating fairly the position of our professors.

That position is not only a trying, but a discouraging one.  The greater part of the professor’s time is spent—­from the point of view of pure science we might almost say wasted—­in teaching the same things over and over again.  After a few years’ practice his round of hours becomes mechanical.  Familiarity with the textbooks and with the uniformly-recurring blunders of each successive class begets a feeling of weariness that is not remote from aversion and contempt.  So far as his prescribed official duties are concerned, he feels that he has nothing more to learn.  There being, then, no stimulus from without, he is open to one of two temptations—­either to rest on his past labors, or, which is far more likely, to keep on studying for himself, but to keep the results to himself.  It is not only more soothing to our pride, it is juster to our professors, to regard them